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Details

Le Cygne (‘The Swan’), composed for the elderly cellist Charles Joseph Lebouc, formed part of Le Carnaval des animaux, the grand zoological fantasy Saint-Säens wrote in 1886 to entertain his friends but not his public; during his lifetime, only Le Cygne appeared in print, the complete work not being performed until 25 February 1922, some two months after the composer’s death.

Early in 1886, the fifty-year-old Saint-Saëns went to Austria on holiday and, as relaxation from his simultaneous work on his third symphony, embarked on a brief cello solo for the well-known performer Charles-Joseph Lebouc, who was about to retire. One thing led to another, and in a matter of days Le cygne had turned into a ‘grande fantaisie zoologique’ (though it has to be said that he had had this project vaguely in mind for some twenty years). Although Le cygne was duly published, the composer resolutely set his face against the other thirteen pieces being played during his lifetime outside a small circle of friends, and Le carnaval des animaux as a whole was not published until 1922, the year after his death. The reason was he was nervous about how such a work would be received in Germany, where he appeared regularly as a pianist. As mentioned above, the intention of the Société Nationale was to appear professional and serious, so jokes were out. In 1886 Saint-Saëns was also in a particularly delicate situation, since he had in the previous year published a series of articles on Wagner in which he resisted the notion that, ‘until he arrived, Drama and Music were in their childhood and paved the way for his appearance’, a wholly reasonable resistance that had brought all Valhalla crashing round his head. Le carnaval therefore led a quiet private life for over thirty years, brought out on the salon circuit for those who might appreciate it, such as Liszt on his last visit to Paris a few months before his death. The choreographer Mikhail Fokine, who used Le cygne for Pavlova’s famous dance ‘The Dying Swan’, learnt it on the mandolin. The ballerina’s dying words were ‘Prepare my Swan costume!’

Le Cygne (‘The Swan’) is an extract from something quite different. It is the thirteenth of fourteen movements for two pianos, string quintet (including double bass), flute, clarinet, xylophone and glockenspiel, forming Le Carnaval des animaux, Grande fantaisie zoologique. Written while on holiday in Austria in the year of the Third Symphony (1886, a remarkable year for French music: Franck’s Violin Sonata in A major, Fauré’s Piano Quartet in G minor, Lalo’s Symphony in G minor, D’Indy’s Symphonie sur un chant montagnard français and Messager’s Les deux pigeons), it is dedicated to his cellist friend Charles Lebouc, with whom he often appeared in chamber music concerts, together with the violinists Charles Lamoureux and Édouard Colonne, then not yet conductors. Meant as a joke, ‘ein musikalischer Spass’, music by Berlioz, Offenbach and Rossini is parodied. The animals—such as the lion, elephant, tortoise, kangaroos and pianists (!)—inhabit a movement each.

Godowsky’s transcription of Le Cygne was originally composed for solo piano on 16 August 1927. It was followed soon afterwards by a version for violin and piano published in May 1929. That version included some major changes in the piano part, offering a completely different ending. Both versions were transposed from Saint-Saëns’s original key of G major to G flat major, both making use of delicate and sensitive runs on the piano. The version recorded here is the one for violin and piano with the violin part played an octave lower. The piece was a favourite of Godowsky himself and was the last piece of music he ever heard, only days before his death in November 1938. It serves as a testament to his genius, and to his skill and perception of the beautiful.

His son Leo, Leopold Godowsky II, married Frances ‘Frankie’ Gershwin, the sister of George. Their son, Leopold Godowsky III, is the head of the Godowsky and Gershwin estates today, and we would like to dedicate this performance to him.